


Interlude: BASIC INSECURITY

by witchoil



Series: A SINCERE EFFORT [4]
Category: Metal Gear
Genre: Brass Moth Present as Absence, Gender-Neutral Pronouns, Hand Jobs, Multi, Mustard Stains, Other, Pity Fuck, Welcome to the Bad Friend Olympics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-26
Updated: 2018-07-26
Packaged: 2019-05-28 17:37:23
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,959
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15054347
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/witchoil/pseuds/witchoil
Summary: “You wouldn’t know how to take care of anything that wasn’t stamped with ‘G.I.’”(Interlude post-NATURAL RESPONSE.)





	Interlude: BASIC INSECURITY

**Author's Note:**

> A few months ago we were sitting around trading dialogue prompts. H gave me, “I’ll be harmless if you will.”  
> \--  
> There's a lot to say here about how grateful I am to roughmagic for letting me play in their sandbox and be a part of the creation of this series, but nothing I could fit in here would do it justice. Love you, babe!!!!!
> 
> Also BIGTIME SHOUT OUT to meezy @maravilla for encouraging me to work on this in the back of an Irish bar. We had a real good time.

 

 

 

 

 

> **IT’S NO FUN WATCHING PEOPLE**
> 
> **WOUND THEMSELVES SO THAT THEY**
> 
> **CAN HOLE UP, NURSE THEMSELVES**
> 
> **BACK TO HEALTH AND THEN**
> 
> **REPEAT THE CYCLE. THEY DON’T**
> 
> **KNOW WHAT ELSE TO DO.**

 

 

 

 

You stumble in on Miller, alone in the kitchen and sadder than a daytime soap, in the middle of the night.

Sleep is an unthinkable luxury while Moth is unconscious in the hospital, for you as well as him, apparently.

Miller is more aware of how little he really has after Snake’s departure. How valuable Moth is now by comparison. And how much easier to lose.

He looks like he’s trying to make a sandwich, the kind kids eat at lunch tables, packed by their moms into little metal boxes with their heroes embossed on the front. White bread, yellow mustard, a metal container of cold cuts with the foil pulled back and ripped. It’s soft food, easy to chew.

Hard to assemble one-handed, though, as you watch Miller struggle to smear mustard on a slice of bread. It won’t stay put, just slides across the counter whenever he tries to move the knife across it. He sets the knife so its blade is propped up on the slice and sets the jar of mustard down on the corner of the bread, squishing it into the counter.

The butter knife jostles, spins, and goes right off the steel countertop to clatter onto the floor. Mustard splatters onto his pant leg and shoe.

“Christ.”

You scrape to pick up the knife for him, not because you think he’ll appreciate the gesture. You place it on the counter, to his right.

“I see Canary finally kicked you out.”

“You would know, sir.”

“It’s in Mother Base’s best interests to keep infection rates down. Interlopers only increase risk.”

“You know they’re at a much higher risk of sepsis than infection.”

He leans heavily on his right side and reaches across his body to grab at the knife. His silence is an admirable show of restraint and you resent it. You’d like to see what he could do to you if he really tried.

“Some decisions made on this base aren’t about you.”

“Someone has to take care of them.”

Your ribs creak like old plastic as you set an elbow on the counter. Miller coughs.

“You wouldn’t know how to take care of anything that wasn’t stamped with ‘G.I.’”

When you drape a hand over his fist, you find it to be smaller than his but not by much. His knuckles protrude into your palm, knobby and hard. The knife stays still between you as you both begin to pull.

“Then I should be able to wash this for you, sir” you say.

The knife jerks and flies from both your hands. Miller’s crutch clatters to the ground as he kicks it away and throws his weight into you. He shuffles briefly on his prosthetic but manages not to fall.

“Ocelot should have taught you how to shut up.”

“Not sure he didn’t.”

His shades slip a little down the bridge of his nose and you know he’s always tired, but this is something else. There’s a little bit of crusted spittle at the corners of his mouth. Oxycodone, maybe, or Vicodin. Shit always made you itch and retch. Hard to live with, hard to live without.

Or maybe he’s always like this. You never asked Moth.

“You could stand to be more worried about your shelf life, you know that?”

“No reason to,” you say, “it’s the same as theirs.” Maybe longer, considering everything.

That same big hand shakes you as it gets a hold on your lapel. His breath is strong at close range, wet and mossy on your face. Paternalistic agony written all over him and his white bread sandwich.

“They’re nothing like you.”

You want to laugh, want to ask him _What am I like?_ _What do you think_ they’re _like?_ You want to bat your lashes and say, _You think about me, sir?_

“Yes, sir, harmless Moth— didn’t choose any of this. You would know.”

You lean against each other, the edge of the stainless steel countertop digging into your back. If he had another hand he would be burying it in your face. Payback, maybe, for what you did to Moth in the mess. Payback is for victims. It’s sadder considering that it was him being fucked with in the first place.

Even if he could punch your nose in, there’s nothing he could rearrange that you care about much.

“I can pretend to be harmless, too.”

His hand is desperate where it grips your BDUs and it kind of turns you off and on at the same time. You know Moth likes this about him, somehow, even if they don’t know it, and that makes you like it even though you don’t.

“I will if you will,” Miller says, already too far into your space to do anything but fuck or fight. The fact that it’s a foregone conclusion strikes you as disgustingly sentimental.

“Fine.”

You don’t kiss people, but Moth probably does. Even with your ‘intervention,’ they still have the mouth for it, more than you do. You don’t close your eyes when someone touches you, either, but you can imagine them having that kind of a romantic streak. Miller nestles his body into yours like he’s trying to disappear. Moth wouldn’t blame him for not wanting to be looked at. But they would also try and break him of the habit.

You try to imagine what they see in him, in his sweaty palm and the sour taste of his mouth. Maybe they like the way he thinks everybody gets their feelings hurt as easy as he does, how it reminds them of how they used to be. Always looking for holes to patch, so it makes sense they’d get attached to wicker boat. But at the same time, you can imagine him giving it right back. Miller laying himself down over puddles and cracks in Mother Base concrete for them, proving himself as sturdy as he imagines them to be delicate.

It’s adorably co-dependent, not that you’d know anything about that. Cute, kinda, but fucked up too.

A lot like the feeling of Miller’s hand fumbling around with the button of your pants. A lot like you letting him do it on his own even though it takes a full minute.

He rubs you so gently you can barely feel it and it’s not until you bite his mouth that you realize he doesn’t think he’s teasing.

“You kidding me?” You ask, nosing your way from cheek to ear, his greasy hair tickling your mouth.

Miller stops and grunts, a questioning sound that goes straight to your head like a nose full of nitrous. So _sensitive._ You’re not used to having the upper hand like this. You tell yourself inexperience makes a good excuse for you to swing for the fences.

“Hope you don’t fight like you fuck. For all our sakes.”

It doesn’t matter if you make him stop and withdraw. You didn’t play into his hand for him to chicken out, but you can’t blame him for finding you an insufficient replacement for Moth. If you’re being honest you know you are. If you’re being _really_ honest, you know he’s here to be their replacement for you, too.

Grunting again, Miller doesn’t stop, but lets himself get rougher, sloppier with how he rubs at you. It’s neither mechanical nor practiced, just earnest. And angry, right down to the way you can feel him grunting quietly into your neck as he works.

You really must be turning into Moth, because you respond to his emotion with heat, tilting to meet Miller’s hand in a way that feels more good than conflicted. Even your breathing speeds up. It hits you with some alarm that you might actually be about to come.

But of course, right on the edge, Miller stops. You’re far, far above begging him for more, but that doesn’t mean you don’t huff.

“Don’t throw a fit,” he murmurs into your neck, pursing his lips into a gentle kiss. It makes your spine tingle and your skin crawl at the same time. “Just adjusting.”

Pumping your hips, whole body itching, you chastise him. “Get on with it.”

When he pulls his hand from your pants you almost bite him again, less than keen to draw this out. That irritation is nothing at all compared to what sweeps over you when Miller dips his fingers into your waistband and starts to pull downwards.

“No.”

“Hold on, sorry. Didn’t know you were shy. Don’t be mad, I think it’s—”

“’M not shy.” With a cupped hand you reach out and press on him, the other hand quickly following to unzip and reach inside. A sound like he’s choking, a quick intake of breath, and then you’re stroking him up and down, not half as gentle as he was with you at first.

“Nng, Civet, that’s—shit.”

He stumbles, tries to shuffle back, and then you’re both on the kitchen floor, hands back inside each other’s pants, legs staggered.

“What is it, sir?” Your voice is flat, has none of Moth’s gentleness.

“I’m not doing this for me,” he says as he resumes his pace, even rougher and more uneven now.

You give it right back, trying to break his pace further, and he seems to do the same. The both of you jerking each other off like it’s a race.

“I’m not doing this for me, either.”

One hand on the ground to steady yourself, you jam a knee forward and Miller makes the kind of noise that embarrasses you. Startled, raw in the throat. There are many things which require the kind of balance and coordination that you’ve honed, many that you could do in your sleep. This isn’t one of those. Maybe Moth likes that, too.

He jerks into you and you jerk back, rutting into each other’s hands like teenagers too stupid to be careful about what they’re already in the middle of.

Miller grunts. “Slow down.”

Like he wants to savor this. It figures.

“I will if you will.”

He doesn’t, and you both come like that, awkward joints knocking into each other as they slip on the ground, backs arching in the same direction to keep your bodies apart. Joined elsewhere.

Without thinking or stopping to breathe, you wipe the semen on your hand on the inside of his coat. He wipes his fingers on outside of your thigh. Somewhere, presumably, Moth keeps sleeping.

You pick up his crutch before you go, hooking the hand-hold onto the edge of the counter within reaching distance. You’re insensitive, but not cruel, and go to offer him a hand. The scowl he offers back is withering. It’s a wonder someone with a face that transparent is capable of working with Ocelot.

“Don’t think this makes us friends.”

Of course he would worry that.

“Not your enemy, either.”

“I’ll believe it when I see it.”

“You’ve heard the spiel. Not an enemy and not a friend. Just a tool, sir.”

“You’re a tool, alright.”

“Them, too. Just tools for the Boss to use how he sees fit.” This is a lie. You like the way it sounds leaving your mouth and the way it makes Miller’s frown deepen.

“Goddammit, Civet, just leave.”

“Yes, sir.”

Something clatters under your boot as you turn. You bend once again to pick up the knife in shaky fingers that you know now smell of sex. Mustard smears the blade and handle, and you pay it no mind as you grasp and throw it into the nearest trash bin, already kicking open the cantina door.


End file.
